Family & Gratitude Part I

I have NO idea where this is going! Lol. Let me first just say that, because this post should have been written yesterday. If for no other reason then that just after getting off the phone with Kimberly & Amy, I had a much clearer picture of what my intentions were! AKA where this post would go! I wanted quiet though & so I ended up waiting until today & now! So we'll just see where this goes! I'm sitting here right now thinking about family. On Thanksgiving when so many people *though not all I know*, are out with their families, I am home. Home, alone. Where I want to be? Not really. However, I'm not in a place where my needs are being met by me or others, or maybe I am meeting them, but others won't, so I'm at home alone. I've spent the past 6 years alone on holidays. My mother walked out in March 2004 & when Thanksgiving came around I honestly don't remember it. I think I spent it at home with Dad, or maybe that was 2005's Thanksgiving? My life is broken up into 3 parts now. Before the divorce, after the divorce & after Rebecca. So from 2004 through 2005, it was alone time, whether I was around people or not. 2006 Rebecca came into the picture & I spent Thanksgiving & Christmas with her family. 2007-2008 was at home, 2009 was with my bio mom's family *because I was 'closing a book', going onto a new chapter in my life, that turned out not to be a new chapter at all*. Now in 2010, I'm 'back where I started' or am I? Now, to try & explain further: 2004 & 2005 were a blur. I realize now I was in soooo much pain, & hiding it, that I won't recall any of it. *Can't makes me a victim is what I learned yesterday, though in certain circumstances like this one, I'm not sure how. Have to ask Kimberly about that! Lol. So it's not really that I won't recall, it's that I have an inability to recall where I was*. Anyway, in 2006 when I went with my Dad & Rebecca to be with her family, I found out they were like my former family, only in a different way, hence why 2007/8 were spent alone! In 2009 I went to my mother's side of the family's get together because in January 2010, I was going to be going to the louisiana center for the blind. I thought I'd graduate & move on to something else. That's another post entirely! Lol. Just how many wounds I feel like opening today just to get to my gratitude I'm not sure! So that brings us to 2010 & how I find myself here alone, again. Now, the next question: why did I say I was alone even when I wasn't? Short answer: You know that feeling of being in a crowded room & still being alone? Well that's how I feel. Longer answer: After my mom left, her family invited me to go there for holidays, so I attended a couple gatherings. It was like walking into hell. Mental anguish, being stabbed in the brain with a red hot poker anyone??? For one thing, they said they wanted me there, but once I was there, they didn't. It wasn't words so much as actions & inactions. We didn't talk, they laughed & I felt like I was on the outside looking in on some great big joke. What was so funny? Why didn't I get it? Divorce does that I guess. It left me feeling like I was THEE only one in a sea of hostility. After that, it was easier to be alone. When Rebecca came into the family I thought: 'Ok, let's try this again.' Needless to say, her family didn't make a good impression AT ALL! I don't believe they cared one way or the other, which is actually good. I mean, if your gonna be real, be real from the beginning, right? However, their reality was seriously flawed from where I was standing, so I decided to forget that idea to! Lol. I came home & stayed here. 2009 really needs no explanation. So, why exactly don't I hang out with them? Any of them? Am I just to picky? Maybe, I say no, but I'm open to other reasons why I might be. To go where I don't belong is the worst pain there is. It's like sewing up a wound, letting it heal so that just the bearest hint of a scar is there, then jumping back into it & being reintroduced to every jagged, broken shattered piece of glass & cutting the wound wide open again. As for Rebecca's family, jerry springer doesn't call to mind happy Thanksgiving's or holidays of any kind, does he?? With that in mind, that's why I'm not part of Thanksgiving at Rebecca's parents home. They may not break furniture over each other's heads, get drunk & have sex with each other, but they do argue, over everything. Forget politics & sex, those are the least of the worries here! Who should clean up, who forgot to pay the cable bill & the like are way more pressing here & cause for serious shouting matches. One good thing about my mother's family, when you got to grandma's place, you shut your mouth & faked it!! If you didn't, you'd get your butt beat 6 ways to Sunday! As if all that weren't enough, for whatever reason, holidays seem to bring up ghosts of people/animals past. That sucks almost as bad as being alone itself. I consider my animals as part of the family as some of you know, so from now on, they'll be lumped in with people. Anyway, my brother Mark died last September of an overdose. Why I miss him so much when we didn't spend Thanksgiving together anyway I don't know. Duke Senior my sister's dog was also killed last November, a week before Thanksgiving. I let him off his chain so I could hook Sadie up & he ran across the street to the junkyard. He was on his way back across the street when a car purposely hit him. It sent him flying into the ditch & then tried to drive in after him to hit him again. There were skid marks on the road leading straight towards him, not away from him, hence why I say that. Because I let him off the chain I felt responsible. I KNOW it wasn't my fault, but even as I write this I'm crying. Just because it wasn't my fault doesn't make it any easier. Then, the day before Thanksgiving 2009 my cat Snowball died. She was my sister's, but she gave her to me due to an inability to afford to take care of her. The worst part about that is that I'd called the vet because Snow was acting sick. I had an appointment for her on December 2nd & I told her she'd be okay. She died just a week before her appointment. Talk about feeling like the worst mother in the universe. Oddly enough, I had tried to get my Gracie into the vet in January 2009 the day she died. So this had happened to me twice in one year!! Then Mark & my Paternal Grandmother died & Snow & Duke. It seemed like it just wouldn't stop. This year we had to put our cat Tigger to sleep in October, & again, I'm just wondering, 'Won't we ever go back to one year without any deaths????' So needless to say, I'd venture a guess that their deaths are most certainly contributing to how I'm feeling today. Not to mention my realizations as of late. As I said, intense sessions with Kimberly & Amy yesterday. Kimberly's was great! Amy's was great, but in a different way. With Kimberly I left feeling light, like I could walk on air & happy! With Amy I left feeling happy but exhausted & pained from my realizations. I'm always the good girl & good girl means not speaking up. Well, my realizations yesterday? Both about family & ones I wouldn't have dared to admit, not to mention a previous revelation about Rebecca from last week's sessions with Amy & Kimberly. 1. I won't tolerate backstabbing, cruel people who smile to your face & trash you behind your back. Therefore, I don't like the majority of my mother's family & won't associate with most of them. 2. I won't tolerate shouting & arguing all day long, which means I won't be with Rebecca's family. 3. Rebecca isn't the mother figure I've been looking for. Those are 3 things I've known for a long time, but haven't voiced. As I said, I'm the good girl & to me, 'good girl' translated into keeping my head down, my mouth shut & not complaining/confessing. Well, now I'm confessing to all of you. I don't like the families I have here, won't associate with them & my 'stepmom' isn't my stepmom. She's doing her best, but we just aren't, won't be mother & daughter. Nobody wants that relationship more then me, but we absolutely won't work that way. Whoa. . . Now that I got all that off my chest. . . The gratitude may enter! Maybe I should make this a 2-parter?